Midtown Greenway Coalition installs new signage

The Midtown Greenway Coalition has installed new wayfinding signage in the trench portion of the 5 1/2-mile-long trail.

The signs inform trail users where to exit to get to Lake Street or Eat Street. The coalition has also installed new banners in all sections of the greenway to indicate that Lake Street or Eat Street is nearby.

The coalition designed the banners and signs in partnership with the Lake Street Council. The City of Minneapolis funded them through its Great Streets Program, which supports neighborhood business districts.

“The reaction from the community has just been amazing,” coalition Executive Director Soren Jensen said of the signs. “Everybody has been very pleased to see them.”

Jensen said people are hungry for better wayfinding in and around the greenway. The goal of the signs, he said, is to help people realize they’re close to Lake Street and Eat Street.

“When you’re down in the greenway trench, it’s really kind of hard to know where you are sometimes,” he said.

The banners start on the greenway near Emerson Avenue and continue east, Jensen said. He added that plans are in the works for more extensive wayfinding along the greenway. That will include helping people get to the greenway in the first place, he said.

Matt Kazinka, sustainability program coordinator for the Lake Street Council, said that it initially took him a long time to get familiar with where he was on the greenway in relation to Lake Street.

He noted the council’s work with the coalition and Hennepin County on a broader study of how to improve connections between Lake Street and the greenway. Some of the business nodes along Lake Street have nearby exit ramps, but others, such as the node at Lake & Bloomington, do not, he said.

“We’re really excited about this as kind of a first step in a broader wayfinding initiative,” he said of the new signs.